he supposes, by a constant change of locality. The brand of Cain is, indeed, upon him, and marked as he is, he resembles a wild beast at bay, whose aim before he falls, is to perpetrate as much mischief as he can.

This extract is selected quite at random, from a paper of no ordinary interest. Upon the whole, we must confess that this volume goes far to heighten our estimate of the zeal and talents of our fellowcountrymen in India. A small community, like that of the Europeans in the Western Presidency, which can in less than two years produce such a volume as this, must contain a large proportion of talent and energy.

We should mention that the volume is profusely illustrated by colored sketches and maps, which, though not very artistically executed, serve the purpose sufficiently well.

On the Vital and Medical Statistics of Chittagong. By J. R. Bedford, Civil Assistant Surgeon. (From the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, June, 1852.)

MR. BEDFORD is well known as an intelligent and active surgeon. The present publication is highly creditable to his zeal in the investigation of facts respecting the rates of human mortality-an investigation of great consequence in many ways. Considering the amount of difficulty under which he had to pursue his knowledge of the vital statistics of his station, the pamphlet before us, independently of any value that it may possess as a record from which the actuary may derive data for his calculations, is important, as showing to the author's professional brethren, how much they might do with very limited means. In point of fact, however, the results of Mr. Bedford's enquiries will not be of great value to the actuary. This is partly due to the defective means, which alone were available to him, of ascertaining the number of births, and partly to the peculiarity of Chittagong, as a trading town, where, as in Calcutta, a great portion of the population are merely temporary sojourners. They do not bring their wives with them, and consequently the number of births, even if all were reported, is less than is due to the population; and they all endeavour to leave the station, and return to their proper homes, before the approach of death, so that the number of deaths is also disproportionate to the number of the people. It would appear that the former cause of error, being more under human control than the latter, operates more extensively to vitiate the results, as is evident from the fact that Mr. Bedford's tables give very nearly twenty-seven deaths annually for every thousand of the population, and little more than seventeen births. This sufficiently indicates that any deductions that may be made from the tables can be of little value. Still, any information at all, provided

only it be correct so far as it goes, is better than none; and we hope that Mr. Bedford's example will be extensively followed by the Civil Surgeons of the various stations throughout India.

A Treatise on Remarkable and Mitigable causes of death, their modes of origin, and means of prevention; including a sketch of Vitul Statistics, and other leading principles of public Hygiene in Europe and India. By Norman Chevers, M. D., Bengal Medical Service, &c. Vol. I. Calcutta. 1852.

THIS is another production of a Bengal Surgeon, who, though still young in the Service, has achieved for himself not only a local, but a European reputation. It is a work of very varied and extensive research, and will not fail to take a high place amongst the standard authorities on a subject that is at last beginning to attract a due share of public attention. On the appearance of the second volume, we shall devote an article to the review of the work. In the mean time we commend the volume before us to the perusal of all classes of our readers.

Christianity opposed to Priestcraft in every form. A Lecture delivered to educated Native young men. By the Rev. T. Boaz, L. L. D. Calcutta. 1852.

AMONGST the means employed by the Missionaries in this city, for the purpose of directing to the message with which they are charged, the attention of the people to whom they are sent, one of the most important is a Christian education through the medium of the English language. By this means a large body of young men have been trained, and are now in all parts of the country, as living epistles, exhibiting by their character and deportment, at once the excellencies and the defects of the system adopted. In addition to these there is about an equal number of young men who have been trained in the Government schools and colleges. Both these classes of young men are in a different position from their fellow-countrymen, and require to be dealt with in a different way. They do not need to have the structure of idolatry and superstition broken down in their minds, for that has been done already; but they generally require that something other and better be erected on its ruins, else there is danger that their latter state may be worse than the former. It was to this class of youths, then comparatively small, that Dr. Duff, twenty years ago, addressed a course of lectures, whose delivery did more towards stirring up the stagnant pool of the native mind, than aught that had been done before. The same method of delivering lectures,

specially addressed to this class, has recently been revived by the Calcutta Missionaries. Two years ago, a course of nine lectures, by as many lecturers, was delivered under the appointment of the Missionary Conference. About the beginning of the present year, a short course was given by several Missionaries and others. At present, a third course, also under the appointment of the Conference, has just been brought to a close.

The pamphlet before us formed one of the lectures that made up the second of these three series. The subject is a very important one in itself, and one well suited to the character of those to whom it was addressed, inasmuch as they, recoiling from the religion of their ancestors, which they have perceived to be a system devised by the priesthood for their own selfish purposes, are peculiarly apt to fall into the snare of such as represent all religious systems as equally intended to promote such base ends. The subject is treated by Dr. Boaz in a lively and attractive style, and with a candour and honesty that must have commended the lecture and the lecturer to the acceptance of the youthful auditory. He does not try to conceal that priestcraft has often worn a Christian mask; (on the contrary he dwells, as some might think, disproportionately long on this part of his subject,) but he shows that the genius and spirit of the Gospel are in direct opposition to all such claims on the part of its teachers as are designated by the term Priestcraft. Altogether we regard this as an excellent lecture, and we hope, that it will induce those to whom it was addressed, and those of the same class into whose hands it may fall in its printed form, to claim for themselves that liberty to which all are entitled, and which is only to be secured by receiving it at the hand of Him who said of himself" If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

We may be allowed to point out one or two slips, that are probably due to typographical errors, but which seem to vitiate the sense of the passages in which they occur. For example, the lecturer is made to speak of the United States and their colonies. So also he is made to speak of the persecution that Bacon and Milton suffered from the priestcraft of their day. Now we do not think that either the one or the other suffered at all from any such cause. But these are slight blemishes, and will not materially interfere with the usefulness of the lecture.

Sermons by the late Rev. John James Weitbrecht, Missionary of the Church Missionary Society at Burdwan: with a short Memoir of the Author prefixed. Calcutta. 1852.

THIS is a posthumous publication: a collection of excellent sermons, intended to serve mainly as a memorial of an excellent man, who was recently removed from the midst of us. This purpose they are well fitted to serve, as the sermons are more than usually like the man.

"Simplicity and Godly sincerity" are their characteristics, as they were his. Mr. Weitbrecht lived as he preached, and preached as he lived. What he was in the pulpit, he was, to an unusual extent, in his ordinary social intercourse with all with whom he was brought into contact. We need not recommend this volume to those who knew its author, for all of them are probably in possession of it ere now. But we would recommend it to that numerous class of our countrymen in India, who are far remote from opportunities of public worship, and who seek to remedy this evil, to as great an extent as it may be remedied, by the reading of a sermon in their families on the Lord's day. Such men have often difficulty in finding sermons well fitted for this purpose, and we know no volume that will be more acceptable to them than that before us. The sermons are short, plain and practical, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Gospel; and then they have this advantage over almost any others for this purpose, that they were originally addressed to a congregation in India, and consequently are more adapted to the circumstances of the members of those household congregations that we have referred to, than almost any volume of European origin can possibly be.

The Memoir gives additional interest to the volume, and is well worthy of serious perusal, as a simple record of a good man's life.

Rough Pencillings of a Rough Trip to Rangoon in 1846. Calcutta. 1853.

As to the roughness or otherwise of the pencillings, we shall have occasion to speak anon :-but as to the roughness of the trip, there can be no manner of doubt or difference of opinion. Mr. Grant left Calcutta as a passenger in the brigantine-rigged craft, the Flora Macdonald, Gamble, master, of forty tons burthen! She draws but seven to eight feet of water; yet she managed to "take the ground" five times in going down a river where ships drawing nineteen to twenty-one feet, are continually passing and re-passing, without danger! On one of these occasions, the Lion tug-steamer, having come to her aid, she held fast so strenuously, that a four-inch hawser was broken at a dead pull; and the more she was solicited to leave go, the more determined to hold fast. On another of these occasions of grounding, she unshipped her rudder, but picked it up again, and proceeded as if nothing had happened. Immediately on parting with her pilot, she carried away her fore-top-mast, and the main-top-mast being lowered with a view to its being pressed into the service as fore-top-mast, was found to be so sprung, as to be utterly unserviceable. Almost immediately she was caught by a cyclone, and for five dreadful days and more dreadful nights, she had to bear the full brunt of a terrific gale. The men (lascars, we presume) at one time gave up all for lost, and refused to do their duty. After

the gale had subsided, the Flora Macdonald walked right into a cul de sac of "sunken rocks," for which her Captain had been looking out all the night, and had just gone below, in the confidence that the danger was past. So thoroughly had she got into the bight of the rocks, that she had barely space to turn on her own bottom, stand out to sea, and wait for morning. After all this, by some strange and unaccountable accident-one of those things that are so contrary to all the probabilities on which men make their calculations and ground their expectations, that they would be deemed impossibilities, but that they do occasionally happen-the Flora Macdonald actually did make the port of Maulmein. The noble heroine, from whom the craft derives her name, did not encounter more perils in her chivalrous journey from Benbecula to Portree, than did her namesake in this voyage across the Bay of Bengal. In both cases, all the chances were, humanly speaking, against them; but in both cases, a kind Providence, upholding gallant hearts, brought them safely through.

And this ought to be told, for the credit of our author and his shipmates, that the same cheerful spirit that was manifested by the noble but unfortunate protegé of the first Flora Macdonald, was displayed in no less "creditable" circumstances by the party in the cuddy of the second. We cannot do better than present our readers with a short extract from that part of our author's narrative which describes the "taking off" of the storm :

6

"It is needless attempting to detail all the misery we endured ' during the continuance of this gale, and after it. For myself, un'accustomed to such a life, I may fairly say, that for six days I had no sleep by night, except in broken, occasional naps of half an hour, 6 nor rest by day. Nor can I be said ever to have had dry clothes on me from the beginning to the end. As for shoes and stockings, and 'such superfluities, they were vanities of which none of us ever dreamed, for, at least, nine days. Independently of the wretchedness of being below in our crammed cabin, (which, I need hardly tell you, was never got to rights") now additionally stuffed with wet sails and wet clothes, and where, even yet, I hardly ever felt free from sea sickness-various promptings kept me on deck all day, and much of the night. There, saturated by the pelting and chilling rain, I have even been glad when a sea, breaking, would wash over me, to warm me and prevent the ill effects of a fresh-water soaking. The only necessary care upon such occasions was to secure a good hold, 'lest the salt-water preservation should prove more lasting than desir'able.

"You will not suppose that, during this time, we permitted all the water that was either under, above, or about us, to damp our spirits, or rob us, when not ill-timed, of our jokes. Such occasions, indeed, are generally productive of a large share, and often have we wish'ed that some of our friends could have seen us at our brief meals, 'mocking the refinements of shore life," dodging" a squall of rain, or a sea, or patiently sitting under both, despatching our food